After almost 5 years, I finally had to cut down all the treelets along my balcony and corridor. As the exterior of my apartment block will be re-painted this month, my treelets that stick out had to be trimmed. These plants were still in the treelet form after all these years due to the limited size of the pots. In total, I had 8 treelets --- 4 Cherry Tree (Muntingia calabura), 3 Common Acacia Tree (Acacia auriculiformis) and one Longan Tree (Dimocarpus longan subsp. longan). It was sad to see the trees go. I had kept around a metre of the trunk, hoping that it would grow some new shoots soon. I would certainly miss the lush green cover along the corridor and the birds that frequent these trees. This Yellow-vented Bulbul (Pycnonotus goiavier) had recently came by the Common Acacia Tree.

One unexpected find during this exercise was a nest of lizard eggs under one of the smaller pots located on the balcony ledge. The eggs were housed in a groove of the pot. Three of them looked fresh with bright whitish shell while another 5 older yellowish ones were just empty shells. The mother lizard was obviously taken by surprise from this unintended intrusion of her nest. It did pause for quite a while to assess the situation before reluctantly moved off to look for cover. After cutting the top part of the treelet, I put the pot with the eggs back to its original location. Hopefully, the mother lizard will find its way back to the eggs. It looked different from the common house lizard, probably a Flat-tailed Gecko (Hemidactylus platyurus).

Soon, I came across another batch of eggs. This time round on the back of a leaf from the parasitic plant, Malayan Mistletoe (Dendrophthoe pentandra). It belonged to a butterfly, Painted Jezebel (Delias hyparete metarete). Over time, many Malayan Mistletoe had colonized the Cherry tree. Their seeds were brought along by birds that excreted on the tree branches. I did not notice the eggs until I took down the branches lined with the mistletoe. Unfortunately, I had no mean to rear them as finding sufficient leaves supply to feed the caterpillar was going to be a problem. Hence, I had to discard the tiny eggs with the leaves.

The last interesting find was the fruiting of the Common Acacia. In the wild, the Common Acacia Tree do bear fruits regularly. I was amused when this small treelet actually bear fruit when planted in a small pot. Though I had seen flowers on it, none stay to become fruit. It was after the treelet was brought down that I discovered the one and only immature fruit. Common Acacia is really a very hardy plant. It survived relatively well even in a very small pot and even strive to make sure that its species continue to prosper in a tough environment.

I am hopeful that the lush green cover along my corridor will return soon. In case new shoots do not sprout from the remaining tree trunk, it will give me a chance to look into growing some new plants in those pots. Anyway, the pots are already full of ground-cover plants.